Hanna Wins N.Y. Republican Primary Aided by Billionaire

June 24 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Representative Richard Hanna of
New York won nomination for another term in his state’s
Republican primary today, defeating a Tea Party-backed
challenger.

Hanna’s supporters included a super-political action
committee founded with the help of billionaire Paul Singer that
encourages Republicans to support gay marriage. Hanna supports
same-sex unions and abortion rights.

With 95 percent of precincts reporting, Hanna had 53
percent of the vote to 47 percent for state Assemblywoman
Claudia Tenney, according to the Associated Press tally in New
York’s 22nd District.

Singer’s super-PAC, American Unity PAC, paid for ads
attacking Tenney’s votes against budget and tax bills in the
state Assembly. Another spot featured an endorsement of Hanna by
Rudolph Giuliani, a former New York City mayor. Super-PACs can
raise campaign funds in unlimited amounts to independently aid
candidates for federal offices.

Tenney, 52, compared herself to David Brat, an economics
professor who unseated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in
Virginia’s Republican primary earlier this month. She criticized
Hanna’s votes to raise the federal debt limit and against adding
a one-year delay of Obamacare to a short-term spending bill.

Tenney won a late endorsement from the Tea Party Patriots,
a group based in the Atlanta area that supports limited
government. Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator from
Pennsylvania who ran for president in 2012, and talk-radio hosts
Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity also promoted Tenney’s
candidacy.

Hanna is assured of winning a third term in November after
no Democrat filed to run in the House district, which takes in
Utica and Binghamton as it runs from Lake Ontario south to the
Pennsylvania border.